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XTPE + KT266a = ?

F

fl00d

n00b
Joined
Jul 25, 2004
Messages
33
Yes I know its lunacy :D

The thing is, I'm getting a new system together and the XTPE is the first (and only) part I have. I was going to wait but curiousity got the better of me - so I swapped out my old ti4600 for the ATI card. The CPU is a XP1900+ sitting in an MSI K7T266pro2. Interesting results... its allowed me to crank res and FSAA etc, but any improvements in general framerates have been fairly modest over my ti4600. Obviously the bottleneck is the CPU/MB - I'm just wondering; how much of a change will I notice once the XTPE is paired with say an FX53?

I haven't been following the hardware scene all that closely until recently, but I'd been under the impression that most of the load of a 3d game is dealt with by the GPU - obviously I was wrong. Can someone fairly simply explain what the CPU does vs what the GPU does in a 3dgame? Can someone also tell me whether or not increases in resolution impose greater demands on the CPU, as opposed to just the GPU?

Is a CPU like an FX53 worth getting, to get the most out of the XTPE? Or is a lower spec'd A64 really all that is needed? The MB I'm planning to get is a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. Can anyone advise what ram I should be getting? (will o'c later as needed) The more options I have the better, as I'll be limited to whatever is in local supply...

Thanks guys
 
All of the game's physics and AI are still CPU calculations. This means your video card is waiting on this data before it can continue on. You can see this easily by continuing to increase the resolution and eye candy settings. Since AI and physics don't change with resolution, you will notice that as you increase the res and eye candy that your frame rates don't change much, if at all, until you reach a point where the VC does start to become the bottleneck.

Some games are simply CPU bound. Realistic flight sims, like IL2, are CPU bound because of the extremely heavy physics calculations.

It can also depend on how the developer coded the game. Look how long we have had video cards with T&L engines, but how long it took programers to actually release this function from the CPU and turn it over to the VC.
 
The faster the processor the more frames per second you will get. Is the FX-53 worth it? You have to answer that question for yourself. $$$ = more performance. In general the Athlon 64 3500+ is considered to be the best bang for your dollar. I am using a crappy XP 3200+ slightly overclocked with an XT PE and can't complain.
 
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